eMusic, one of Apple's most aggressive rivals in online music retail, will launch a radically overhauled website on Tuesday, July 22, combining content and features from the web's most popular social networks and media sharing sites.

As part of a strategy to focus on discovering new music, profiles from Wikipedia, photos from Flickr and videos from YouTube will sit alongside recommendation and sharing tools for artists and bands featured on the new look eMusic site.

The US firm, which claims to be "a strong number two" to Apple, said its new offering "tears down the walls" of the music retail world by opening up its site content to users and encouraging them to bring in content from the rest of the web.

eMusic's users will be able to access social networking site Facebook, bookmarking services Delicious, Magnolia and Reddit, recommendation system Digg and the social news site Newsvine, among others.

Aggregated content will sit alongside reviews and profiles by eMusic's 250 music writers, including Newsday jazz specialist Kevin Whitehead and blues writer John Morthland, a former associate editor of Rolling Stone.

"We have an ethos here of trying to innovate constantly - you really can't stand still," said the eMusic chief executive, David Pakman.

"You have to look at what happens in the behaviour of digital consumers, and think 'what does digital music look like in 2010 or 2011?'," Pakman added.

He said consumers find most of their music through blogs, word of mouth, social networks or online retail, and that radio and TV have little influence on people discovering new artists.

eMusic does not have deals with the major music companies - EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner - but focuses on independent labels, offering a set number of DRM-free MP3 downloads for a fee each month, from £10 for 30 songs to £14.99 for 75 songs.

The US company generates 80% of its revenues from the domestic American market, but said its UK business was growing more quickly.

Pakman said the site sells between 7m and 8m songs globally each month, adding that global revenues and subscriptions would rise by 40-50% this year.

eMusic will also launch an extensive music recommendation system with "unprecedented accuracy" in late September, a "visual breadcrumbs" navigation feature and improved search.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".